Rob Roy, Walter Scott [mystery books to read txt] 📗

receiving, in part at least, that refreshment and dissipation of ideas from the clear and calm scene, without which they had become beyond the command of my own volition. I resumed my place on the couch—with a heart, Heaven knows, not lighter but firmer, and more resolved for endurance. In a short time a slumber crept over my senses; still, however, though my senses slumbered, my soul was awake to the painful feelings of my situation, and my dreams were of mental anguish and external objects of terror.

I remember a strange agony, under which I conceived myself and Diana in the power of MacGregor's wife, and about to be precipitated from a rock into the lake; the signal was to be the discharge of a cannon, fired by Sir Frederick Vernon, who, in the dress of a Cardinal, officiated at the ceremony. Nothing could be more lively than the impression which I received of this imaginary scene. I could paint, even at this moment, the mute and courageous submission expressed in Diana's features—the wild and distorted faces of the executioners, who crowded around us with “mopping and mowing;” grimaces ever changing, and each more hideous than that which preceded. I saw the rigid and inflexible fanaticism painted in the face of the father—I saw him lift the fatal match—the deadly signal exploded—It was repeated again and again and again, in rival thunders, by the echoes of the surrounding cliffs, and I awoke from fancied horror to real apprehension.

The sounds in my dream were not ideal. They reverberated on my waking ears, but it was two or three minutes ere I could collect myself so as distinctly to understand that they proceeded from a violent knocking at the gate. I leaped from my couch in great apprehension, took my sword under my arm, and hastened to forbid the admission of any one. But my route was necessarily circuitous, because the library looked not upon the quadrangle, but into the gardens. When I had reached a staircase, the windows of which opened upon the entrance court, I heard the feeble and intimidated tones of Syddall expostulating with rough voices, which demanded admittance, by the warrant of Justice Standish, and in the King's name, and threatened the old domestic with the heaviest penal consequences if he refused instant obedience. Ere they had ceased, I heard, to my unspeakable provocation, the voice of Andrew bidding Syddall stand aside, and let him open the door.

“If they come in King George's name, we have naething to fear—we hae spent baith bluid and gowd for him—We dinna need to darn ourselves like some folks, Mr. Syddall—we are neither Papists nor Jacobites, I trow.”

It was in vain I accelerated my pace down stairs; I heard bolt after bolt withdrawn by the officious scoundrel, while all the time he was boasting his own and his master's loyalty to King George; and I could easily calculate that the party must enter before I could arrive at the door to replace the bars. Devoting the back of Andrew Fairservice to the cudgel so soon as I should have time to pay him his deserts, I ran back to the library, barricaded the door as I best could, and hastened to that by which Diana and her father entered, and begged for instant admittance. Diana herself undid the door. She was ready dressed, and betrayed neither perturbation nor fear.

“Danger is so familiar to us,” she said, “that we are always prepared to meet it. My father is already up—he is in Rashleigh's apartment. We will escape into the garden, and thence by the postern-gate (I have the key from Syddall in case of need.) into the wood—I know its dingles better than any one now alive. Keep them a few minutes in play. And, dear, dear Frank, once more fare-thee-well!”

She vanished like a meteor to join her father, and the intruders were rapping violently, and attempting to force the library door by the time I had returned into it.

“You robber dogs!” I exclaimed, wilfully mistaking the purpose of their disturbance, “if you do not instantly quit the house I will fire my blunderbuss through the door.”

“Fire a fule's bauble!” said Andrew Fairservice; “it's Mr. Clerk Jobson, with a legal warrant”—

“To search for, take, and apprehend,” said the voice of that execrable pettifogger, “the bodies of certain persons in my warrant named, charged of high treason under the 13th of King William, chapter third.”

And the violence on the door was renewed. “I am rising, gentlemen,” said I, desirous to gain as much time as possible—“commit no violence—give me leave to look at your warrant, and, if it is formal and legal, I shall not oppose it.”

“God save great George our King!” ejaculated Andrew. “I tauld ye that ye would find nae Jacobites here.”

Spinning out the time as much as possible, I was at length compelled to open the door, which they would otherwise have forced.

Mr. Jobson entered, with several assistants, among whom I discovered the younger Wingfield, to whom, doubtless, he was obliged for his information, and exhibited his warrant, directed not only against Frederick Vernon, an attainted traitor, but also against Diana Vernon, spinster, and Francis Osbaldistone, gentleman, accused of misprision of treason. It was a case in which resistance would have been madness; I therefore, after capitulating for a few minutes' delay, surrendered myself a prisoner.

I had next the mortification to see Jobson go straight to the chamber of Miss Vernon, and I learned that from thence, without hesitation or difficulty, he went to the room where Sir Frederick had slept. “The hare has stolen away,” said the brute, “but her form is warm—the greyhounds will have her by the haunches yet.”

A scream from the garden announced that he prophesied too truly. In the course of five minutes, Rashleigh entered the library with Sir Frederick Vernon and his daughter as prisoners.

“The fox,” he said, “knew his old earth, but he forgot it could be stopped by a careful huntsman.—I had not forgot the garden-gate, Sir Frederick—or, if that title suits you better, most noble Lord Beauchamp.”

“Rashleigh,” said Sir Frederick, “thou art a detestable villain!”

“I better deserved the name, Sir Knight, or my Lord, when, under the direction of an able tutor, I sought to introduce civil war into the bosom of a peaceful country. But I have done my best,” said he, looking upwards, “to atone for my errors.”

I could hold no longer. I had designed to watch their proceedings in silence, but I felt that I must speak or die. “If hell,” I said, “has one complexion more hideous than another, it is where villany is masked by hypocrisy.”

“Ha! my gentle cousin,” said Rashleigh, holding a candle towards me, and surveying me from head to foot; “right welcome to Osbaldistone Hall!—I can forgive your spleen—It is hard to lose an estate and a mistress in one night; for we shall take possession of this poor manor-house in the name of the lawful heir, Sir Rashleigh Osbaldistone.”

While Rashleigh braved it out in this manner, I could see that he put a strong force upon his feelings, both of anger and shame. But his state of mind was more obvious when Diana Vernon addressed him. “Rashleigh,” she said, “I pity you—for, deep as the evil is which you have laboured to do me, and the evil you have actually done, I cannot hate you so much as I scorn and pity you. What you have now done may be the work of an hour, but will furnish you with reflection for your life—of what nature I leave to your own conscience, which will not slumber for ever.”

Rashleigh strode once or twice through the room, came up to the side-table, on which wine was still standing, and poured out a large glass with a trembling hand; but when he saw that we observed his tremor, he suppressed it by a strong effort, and, looking at us with fixed and daring composure, carried the bumper to his head without spilling a drop. “It is my father's old burgundy,” he said, looking to Jobson; “I am glad there is some of it left.—You will get proper persons to take care of old butler, and that foolish Scotch rascal. Meanwhile we will convey these persons to a more proper place of custody. I have provided the old family coach for your convenience,” he said, “though I am not ignorant that even the lady could brave the night-air on foot or on horseback, were the errand more to her mind.”

Andrew wrung his hands.—“I only said that my master was surely speaking to a ghaist in the library—and the villain Lancie to betray an auld friend, that sang aff the same Psalm-book wi' him every Sabbath for twenty years!”

He was turned out of the house, together with Syddall, without being allowed to conclude his lamentation. His expulsion, however, led to some singular consequences. Resolving, according to his own story, to go down for the night where Mother Simpson would give him a lodging for old acquaintance' sake, he had just got clear of the avenue, and into the old wood, as it was called, though it was now used as a pasture-ground rather than woodland, when he suddenly lighted on a drove of Scotch cattle, which were lying there to repose themselves after the day's journey. At this Andrew was in no way surprised, it being the well-known custom of his countrymen, who take care of those droves, to quarter themselves after night upon the best unenclosed grass-ground they can find, and depart before day-break to escape paying for their night's lodgings. But he was both surprised and startled, when a Highlander, springing up, accused him of disturbing the cattle, and refused him to pass forward till he had spoken to his master. The mountaineer conducted Andrew into a thicket, where he found three or four more of his countrymen. “And,” said Andrew, “I saw sune they were ower mony men for the drove; and from the questions they put to me, I judged they had other tow on their rock.”

They questioned him closely about all that had passed at Osbaldistone Hall, and seemed surprised and concerned at the report he made to them.

“And troth,” said Andrew, “I tauld them a' I ken'd; for dirks and pistols were what I could never refuse information to in a' my life.”

They talked in whispers among themselves, and at length collected their cattle together, and drove them close up to the entrance of the avenue, which might be half a mile distant from the house. They proceeded to drag together some felled trees which lay in the vicinity, so as to make a temporary barricade across the road, about fifteen yards beyond the avenue. It was now near daybreak, and there was a pale eastern gleam mingled with the fading moonlight, so that objects could be discovered with some distinctness. The lumbering sound of a coach drawn by four horses, and escorted by six men on horseback, was heard coming up the avenue. The Highlanders listened attentively. The carriage contained Mr. Jobson and his unfortunate prisoners. The escort consisted of Rashleigh, and of several horsemen, peace-officers and their assistants. So soon as we had passed the gate at the head of the avenue, it was shut behind the cavalcade by a Highland-man, stationed there for that purpose. At the same time the carriage was impeded in its farther progress by the cattle, amongst which we were involved, and by the barricade in front. Two of the escort dismounted to remove the felled trees, which they might think were left there by accident or carelessness. The others began with their whips to drive the cattle from the road.

“Who dare abuse our cattle?” said a rough voice.—“Shoot him, Angus!”

Rashleigh instantly called out—“A rescue! a rescue!” and, firing a pistol, wounded the man who spoke.

“Claymore!” cried the leader of the Highlanders, and a scuffle instantly commenced. The officers of the law, surprised at so